This Wasn't Part of the Lease

A ghost story

Hopefully anybody out there who’s had a roommate can relate to this story, at least a little.

This story is also available in my anthology Word Associations (hey, that title’s familiar).

---

Reminder that I’m also accepting requests for art commissions. Please see this post for details!

---

I should have known this apartment was too good to be true. Right in the middle of downtown, close to a gym and a Whole Foods, rent at only $600 a month. Plenty of space, room for my upright piano, and basic cable already hooked in. What could go wrong?

Well, the landlord never told me about the bumps and scratches I heard every night for a week. The first time, something had made a floorboard creak in my living room at two in the morning. I woke up sweating all over, listening for that noise to repeat itself. There were no voices, no bumps or shuffles, but I heard a smaller, softer noise, like quick footsteps across the floor.

Had someone broken in? That would happen my first week, wouldn't it? I'd had a fear of this sort of thing my whole life; when I was a kid I would hear the house settling and convince myself that it was somebody breaking in, that they would find me, and they would slaughter me and everyone I know. Now that fear was alive and well all over again.

The clatter of a cupboard door cracked through the apartment. Whoever this bastard was, he was going through my kitchen!

I got out of bed and stepped slowly toward the bedroom door. There was a light switch right across the hall. If I flipped it, maybe the intruder would bolt. I slid my feet across the carpet, and held my hand to the switch, and listened again. Another creak, and I flipped the switch. Instantly I ducked back into my bedroom and peered out. "Who's there!?" I yelled. "You better come out! I've got a gun!"

Nothing moved.

My heart jackhammered as I crept into the living room.

No one scrambled out of my kitchen. Nothing disturbed my furniture. My front door was still fastened shut. The statue of a 1920's dancer left by my late grandmother still swayed in stillness on top of the piano. Had the intruder come in through a window? No, that was shut.

I turned on every light and checked every room, but there was no sign of a break-in.

I went back to bed, feeling less like an adult than I had in years.

I had a dream where I'm in a dark lounge full of mist—less the smoke of a dingy tavern, more the fog of a forest at night after a storm. A man at the piano is playing "Clair de lune." He looks at me, but I have difficulty seeing his face…

◆◆◆

The noises came back the next few nights and woke me up again. Each time, I checked the apartment and found nothing.

I especially couldn't explain the cabinets. On Thursday, I made sure all of them were shut so none of them would slam in the middle of the night. And when the middle of the night came, that's exactly what they did.

First thing Friday morning I called my landlord.

He said, "Look, it's an old building, parts of it are always settling, and I think the cabinets just open and close on their own. It's nothing to worry about."

"Right," I said. "And what do you think makes them do that?"

"I dunno. The air conditioning?"

Good God, was this man trying to sound incompetent? "It's almost Fall. I hardly even need the air conditioning right now."

"Then you got me. Let me know if you need anything."

And he hung up. He'd seemed a lot more on the ball when he first showed me the place. Strange.

I decided to try and ask my neighbors. They might know what's going on.

I stepped out and knocked on the door to Apartment 6. An older blonde woman with two small boys answered. The boys were putting their shoes on for school.

"Hi," I said, "I just moved into Apartment 8 this last Monday. I was wondering if—"

"Apartment 8?" she said. "So you're the sap who got Apartment 8?"

I winced, and began to mourn the time and money I'd contractually agreed to put into this place. "Do you know anything about the noises?"

"I have to put up with them, too. Sometimes it gets loud enough to wake my boys up, and then they can never get back to sleep." She spun around. "Hey, hurry, the bus'll be here any minute!" The boys zipped past us with their backpacks and coats on. "If you ask me," the mom continued, "they should just close that place off. But of course they don't want to stop making money off of it."

"Do you know what's causing it?" I said.

"You, my friend," she said, "have got a ghost."

I stepped back. Something told me I couldn't rely on her, either. "Thanks. You've been a great help."

I went back and got ready for work at the GNC.

That night, there was something new. Something that told me maybe the mom next door was on to something. Somebody was playing my piano.

It was soft and gentle—perhaps trying not to wake me—but I knew that piano when I heard it. I knew Beethoven's "Moonlight" sonata when I heard it, too.

I stepped out and flipped the switch. The keyboard lid on the piano had been raised. The keys were moving entirely on their own.

I had originally bought the piano intending to learn it myself. A self-teaching book was still propped open on the stand. I'd only gotten a few chapters in before I moved, and had barely made any time to practice since. And now the piano was playing itself, and with a virtuoso's touch, at that.

At a loss for any other option, I said, "Hello?"

And the music stopped.

My apartment was haunted.

I barely slept that night.

When I did sleep, I found myself back in the lounge…

◆◆◆

I recognize a few of the faces through the mist around me—some family, some friends, some celebrities—and could swear that they had died years ago. One rocker who passed in the early 2000's gets up from his table, walks to the stage, and leaves a tip in the piano player's glass.

The pianist, his face still a blur, lifts and jiggles it while giving me a quick nod. I still can't quite make out his face.

◆◆◆

When I got dressed the next morning, the piano began to play again. This time, it wasn't a classical piece like before. This was one of the pieces from my lesson book. A simple, melodic "London Bridge is Falling Down." And it performed a way that made my playing sound like a kid with a toy.

As I walked out for work, it moved on to "Blow the Man Down." This ghost was getting bolder. Was this its way of making fun of me? Or was this some weird way of trying to encourage me?

I spent most of my shift checking on my phone for anything about ghosts or hauntings that might help me. Contract or no, I didn't know if I could stand living there too long. Too bad most of what I saw had more to do with abandoned buildings or paranormal B.S. than actual hauntings. If I could call a Venkman or a Stantz or even an exorcist, that would make the whole thing so simple.

Wait a minute… an exorcist.

Hadn't my ex, Melinda, become a minister? And wasn’t I still on somewhat good terms with her?

As soon as I stepped out the door after work, I called her up.

"How unexpected!" she said. "What have you been up to?"

"Oh, doing fine. I just got a new apartment downtown. It's actually why I called you. You're a minister now, right?"

"Ssssort of. I got one of those online ordinations so I could officiate weddings. It's a lot of fun. Why?"

"Oh, online?" That threw a kink into my plans. I'd thought she was leading an actual church or something. "So I guess you don't do exorcisms?"

"Exorcisms? What's going on?"

"What would you say if I told you my apartment's haunted?"

"Either you need professional help, or you're doing a bad job of trying to get me back, or both."

"I'm serious. My neighbor will tell you the same thing. It's haunted, and I need to get rid of whatever's there."

"Look, I don't do exorcisms, and I'm not coming over. See you later."

And she hung up.

I arrived back at home after sundown. As I left the elevator, I noticed my neighbor peeking out of her door. Her boys were squealing at each other from inside. "Why did you have to get a piano?"

"Has it been playing?" I said.

"About every couple of hours. Whatever's in there, it's raising a real ruckus today. Check and see if everything's okay.

I ran in. "Oh, for God's sake…"

The dancer statue had fallen to the floor. Its head and arm had snapped off, and the body had split at the waist.

My grandmother loved that statue, kept it in pristine shape, gave it a place of honor on her mantel. She told me once that it reminded her of her own days as a dancer. When she died, that was the one thing I wanted from her estate, because it was the one thing that never failed to remind me of her.

I gathered the pieces and placed them back on the coffee table, then grabbed two steel pots from the kitchen and started banging them together.

"Now listen!" I yelled. "I don't know who you are or where you came from. But now you've gone too far. That statue was irreplaceable. If you don't shape up and stop all this, I am going to do whatever I can to send you back to whatever hell you came from. Got it?"

I heard nothing. God, I must have looked like an idiot, shouting at my own apartment.

Then, after an eternity of silence, the piano began to play.

A minor scale crawled down the keyboard, and concluded with a quick bass chord.

"You think this is funny?" I said. "I'm serious. Touch my stuff again, and I swear, I'm calling the Pope."

The piano started playing the "Tempest" sonata as I stormed into my room. I knew this place was too good to be true, and now this poltergeist was my proof.

◆◆◆

That dream again, where I'm in the lounge. The man at the piano is playing with even more fury and passion, and when he finishes, I'm compelled to give him a standing ovation. More people get up to leave him tips.

A waitress comes by and leaves me my check. I look it over, and it's actually my lease contract for the apartment, with six hundred dollars hand-written as the monthly cost.  I could have sworn I'd paid my first month's rent, but it says I still owe three hundred.

I reach for my wallet, but the waitress stops me. "Don't worry about it, he said he'd take care of it."

I look at the waitress again. She's wearing the same dress as the dancer statue, and something about her face reminds me of my grandmother. She gestures to the man at the piano, who waves.

I look at the bill again, and now it's my electric bill. I reach again for my wallet, but I can't find it in any of my pockets.

Next to me, an elderly woman stands up, as if someone has just called to her. "Time to go already?"

◆◆◆

I don't know where the glass came from, but there it was, standing on the piano, stuffed with money. Maybe I was still groggy after waking up. But I counted it, and the total came to about $350, plus change. Half my rent, plus half this month's electric bill.

"Seriously?" I said at nothing. "Is this for me?"

High notes tinkled on the piano, followed by a C chord. Peppy. Positive. I suppose it'd use a minor chord for "No."

"You know, usually when people become roommates, there are some ground rules."

A single high note responded.

"Just, please, don't touch my stuff. I can't spend my life picking up after you."

A low bass phrase, which somehow seemed to say, "I'll do my best."

The piano rattled a little with every note. Now that I thought about it, that statue had been standing awfully close to the edge before, hadn't it? The poltergeist's playing must have shaken it off by accident.

"No more piano playing in the middle of the night. And not so loud during the day. You might scare the neighbors."

An A minor. Somber. Negative.

"Does all this sound okay to you?"

A major.

"Good. Now I have to get ready for work. So—" I ran my eyes around the apartment, and found the statue once again standing, this time on the bookcase. You could tell it had been broken—the cracks were a dead giveaway—but somehow the poltergeist had reattached everything. But where did it get the glue? And—

No, no point wondering. If I could accept a poltergeist, and I could accept it materializing money out of nowhere, I could accept this. It looked better on the bookcase anyway.

I got dressed, stepped out, and passed by my neighbor's apartment as she opened the door. "Seems a bit more quiet today," she said.

"Yeah, I think we worked something out."

She started laughing.

"What?" I said. "Really, it's fine. I don't quite get how he's able to pay his part of the rent, but I don't see why we can't get along."

She forced herself to stop, and patted my shoulder. "You poor guy. That's what the last tenant said. You haven't met your roommate's friends yet, have you?"

"Friends?"

A shudder ran up and down my spine. I should have known this was too good to be true.